Bohemia Revisited
by LaLuna
Summary: My first RENT fic! "The problem with now is that it always turns into then. That’s why love’s so important. It doesn’t know time ..." Takes place about 6 or 7 years after the musical. Mark and an old friend remember their friends and their past, while pon


Please note : I do not own any of the characters or concepts herein. They belong to the wonderful and talented Jonathan Larson. Thanks for reading :)

**Bohemia Revisted**

A cold wind blew into the café. Mark looked up from his half empty cup of tea, his eyes wide with anticipation. A little old lady with a shopping bag from Bloomingdale's shuffled past and found a solitary table in the back. _Not her_, he thought, exhaling and taking another hurried gulp of cranberry zinger. _Why am I acting like this? It's not like I'm about to meet the fucking Queen of England or something. Relax. It's just coffee with an old friend._ At this Mark smiled. _Old friend_. He wondered if she really would look old. Not that he expected her to. She was beautiful then, she would be beautiful now. One of those people who never gave their looks up without a fight. Would he look old to her? It had only been five years since the last time he saw her. Five years. It felt like ninety. So much had happened , so many feelings and emotions … So much pain. More than any human should have to experience. He felt as though living had stripped him of all feeling. Nothing affected him anymore. He was numb, raw, exposed. Life now seemed to be nothing but a random collection of broken, misshapen pieces all spinning around and around each other with neither point nor purpose. It was like living inside a kaleidoscope, or a really bad imitation of some Jackson Pollock painting. Now more than ever he felt like an outside witness; a cold spectator to the human race. And alone.

A tall, skinny woman in a long black jacket and jeans breezed into the café. He almost didn't recognize her until she stopped, put one hand on her hip and leaned back into herself to scan the room. He'd know that carefree, I-don't-give-a-damn stance anywhere. It was one of the things he remembered first noticing about her. In a matter of seconds her dark eyes had found him and she was walking over to his table with a small smile across her face. He thought about standing up, but decided against it, as it would just force them into one of those awkward hugs friends who haven't seen each other in a long time give because they think it's the correct thing to do.

"Hi Mark," she said in her soft, husky voice.

"Maureen." He smiled; the first genuine smile in days. "Hi." She sat down in the chair across from him and removed her knit ski cap. Her hair was shorter now and straight, with a reddish tint. She wore less makeup than she used to. Her nose was tan. She looked about 20 pounds thinner. _Shit, she looks like a supermodel and I look like a train wreck. How fitting. I never could live up to her standards. _

"You look good," she said, as if reading his thoughts.

"Don't lie," he spat back, with a sardonic grin. "I'm wasting away, my clothes are dirty and wrinkled, and it's been months since I got laid." Surprisingly, she did not smile back.

"I meant good considering –"

"Yeah, I know. This is actually an improvement, though. You should have seen me a year ago."

"I wish I could have." She looked down at her hands. "I mean, I was at the funeral, and I saw you when you did that speech, but it wasn't the same. I needed to feel a connection, you know? I just suddenly felt so alone."

"You were there? Why didn't you come over, or call or something? You could have spoken too. Or sang, read poetry, I don't know, anything." Maureen shook her head.

"I couldn't. I was in the middle of shooting some damn Indie crap that wound up going bankrupt halfway through. The bastards only let me take one day, and it all happened so fast I barely had time to make any arrangements. I left just after the service." A waiter appeared out of nowhere. "Coffee please, cream, no sugar."

"I felt so weird being there by myself. Like I didn't belong."

"You were his best friend, Mark. Of course you belonged. I only met him through you, and even after that we were never very close. He probably just thought of me as that bitch who broke your heart." Mark stared at her, momentarily shocked into silence. It was the first time she'd ever admitted to breaking his heart.

"He never thought that," he said, after a pause. "He liked you, I know he did. You made him laugh. And you were good to him, sweet and outrageous. Just what he needed after what he'd been through. The first time he left the house after rehab was to go see your show."

"Only because you made him," she said, smiling at his attempts to ease her guilt.

"_Mimi_ made him," he corrected. A silence interrupted their conversation and hung heavy like a ghost. "That's when he really started to go downhill. After Mimi. Without her I think his body just gave up. He didn't want to fight anymore, life was just too hard. He wouldn't even go to her funeral."

"I'll never forgive myself for missing that. I was on and off the phone with my agent for four days and then Joanne had some stupid legal banquet thing we just had to drive 200 miles to attend. By the time I got around to checking any of my messages she was gone and it was over." She inhaled slowly and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "I sent something to her mother. Of course that doesn't make it right." Mark bit his lip and tried not to wonder how busy she must be to not even find the time to check her messages. _Rubbing elbows with the beautiful people, chatting with her agent while I'm busy wallowing in my own misery. She's everything you'd love to hate, and yet I can't. _

"So you and Joanne are still together then," he said in a feeble attempt to change the subject. The waiter brought her coffee and she took a long, hungry sip before nodding with some conviction.

"Yeah. She loves it out there. California is chock full of people needing legal help, it's a gold mine. She can pick and choose her clients, which makes her feel more relaxed and in-control, and you know how much she loves to be in control, so then she's not trying to control me, and I can do my own thing and have some breathing room and all that. It's been good for us, I think."

"Sounds like it. I never thought you'd leave New York, but I guess people need to change." Maureen nodded.

"During that year after Angel died I was crawling out of my skin. I wasn't working, Joanne was driving me up the wall every other week, my friends were … disappearing. Mimi was in and out of the hospital, Roger was worrying himself to death over her, and then Collins …" She clutched her coffee cup tightly and Mark noticed her hand trembling ever so slightly. "It was too much. After his memorial service I decided I had to get out of there. I just kept remembering what he'd said about going out West, starting over … And I knew I just couldn't - I mean, I didn't want to …" She looked away, afraid to meet his gaze. Mark thought he saw guilt in her eyes.

"Watch your friends die?" He supplied bitterly. Still she would not look at him, but the fact that she did not deny what he said told him he was right. "I remember Roger saying the same thing about Mimi, just after Angel, just before he left. He got that urge for going, too. Couldn't stick around, couldn't deal with it anymore." _Shut up_, he thought to himself, _don't be an asshole. She's hurting too. _"But then, he did come back. I guess he loved her too much, loved _us _too much to just run away." As soon as he said the words he wished he hadn't. Now she no longer avoided his gaze, but looked at him fiercely, her eyes burning with hurt and regret.

"Is that what you think? That I ran away?" Mark shrugged and stared at the melted teabag in his empty cup. _Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Why did I open my mouth? Why do I ever open my mouth? Every time I do I always wind up saying something stupid. I should just do the world a favor and get my jaw wired shut._

"How dare you make assumptions about me? You don't know what I was going through! People deal with shit in different ways, Mark. You, of all people should know about that." And suddenly he was angry. _What _she _was going through? Make assumptions about _her?

"You're right, I should. But I don't. I don't know much of anything these days except how it feels to hold your best friend for hours while he cries. Or the way fifteen different bottles of pills look all lined up on your kitchen table, even though deep down you know they're not doing a damn bit of good. Or the sound hospital equipment makes as it's pumping life into your friends so that maybe they'll be able to hold on for one more day. Or how to go through a dead person's belongings and decide what you want to keep and what should be donated to the Salvation Army." She looked as though he'd reached out and slapped her across the face. He thought he saw tears forming in the corners of her eyes, but he didn't care. He'd held the emotion inside for too long without any way to release it until it had churned itself into nothing but dangerous and explosive rage. He felt like one of those cartoon TNT boxes, and Maureen was the demonic little mouse who'd just flipped the switch. "Fuck it," he said, and stood up, throwing a few dollars on the table. "I gotta go. I'll see ya."

"Mark," she said. She grabbed his arm and looked at him in a way he hadn't seen in years. Pleading. Apologetic. Slowly, deliberately he sat back down. As quickly it had come his anger disappeared. He felt sapped and empty and alone. "You can't leave yet," she said after a pause. "I haven't even told you how much I loved the film."

"You saw it?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "How?" He thought it'd only been shown in the city. Three art house cinemas, tops.

"We still get the _Times_, Joanne could _never _give up the _Times_, and some film critic gave it about two inches of review in this article about the current popularity of Indie films. Joanne had to fly back to New York for her mother's birthday, so I came along for the ride and made a point to find a place that was showing it." Mark stared at her, stunned that she went to so much trouble.

"Wow, I – I really appreciate that, Maureen. I mean, the effort." She shrugged, not wanting him to get all mushy on her. He remembered how she'd always had zero tolerance for the sappy, "Lifetime, television for women," stuff.

"You'd worked so hard on the damn thing I figured it had to be good." A pause. "It was." She stared at him, meaning what she said. "Better than good. Beautiful."

"Do you think they –"

"They would have thought so, too," she said, answering his question before he could ask it.

"It tore my fucking heart out to finish it. I mean, after … just, after. I was alone. Really alone. But I couldn't put it all behind me because here was this thing, this daily reminder just sitting there, waiting to be finished. Not even waiting, _demanding_. And I couldn't let it go. It didn't feel right, no matter how hard I wanted it to disappear. I even tried throwing it off the Brooklyn Bridge but chickened out at the last second." Maureen smiled. It felt good to make someone smile again. "But then when it was finally done, I just had this intense feeling of peace. It was perfect. It was them, immortalized forever."

"It was _us_."

"And I thought, I did that. Me. And now what we had, what we were will never die. We're frozen forever, just like that, just as we should be. Back then, we knew that was it, there was nothing else but right then. And we made the most of each last moment. There was no regret, no fear, no hate. Only now. Only love … But the problem with now is that it always turns into then. That's why love's so important. Without it you might as well be dead ...Love doesn't know time. It lasts, even though now won't."

"Yeah," she said, her voice hushed and distant. A brief silence hung between them. Mark studied her expression, searching for some signs of inner thought. _I think she finally understands. I never thought she'd ever get me, get where I was coming from, but that look … She knows. She's been left behind, and she feels it too. _

"You know," Maureen said, interrupting his thoughts just as she had interrupted his life; casual, unexpected, perfectly timed. "I do know some people. In the Industry, I mean. Nobody big, but important enough to give you a good head start …" She playfully fingered a packet of Sweet N Low. "If you're interested."

"No thanks, I've got everything I need right here." And immediately he realized the validity of this statement. _I do. I don't need to buy a car or move out West or change jobs. I don't need an escape. I don't want one. Why bother running away from the things you'll eventually just want to run back to? Roger found that out the hard way. _"Besides," he said, returning her sly grin, "I'm not into that scene. Unlike you, I don't sell-out."

"Fuck you!" she shrieked, obviously not caring that she was disturbing the other restaurant patrons. She reached across the table and slugged him in the arm. "You punk. I am _not _a sell-out."

"Ow!"

"Don't be such a pussy, that didn't hurt."

"Didn't I tell you I was wasting away? I've got nothing up there but skin and bone!" He rubbed the spot. "And now a nasty bruise."

"You're not even grateful that I offered to do you a favor." She pretended to pout. "Maybe now I won't take you out to dinner." Mark raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

"Well, well, well! Aren't we feeling generous? What, did you strike gold in some dime-a-dozen chick flick with Josh Hartnett?"

"Now you're just being nasty."

"Somebody's gotta be."

She stared at him and cocked her head to one side. "Touché." Grinning, she took another long sip of her coffee. Mark noticed that she automatically stuck her pinky out. It would have looked almost aristocratic if her fingernails hadn't been painted a deep mauve.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"What?" She glanced to where he was pointing. "Oh, that. I dunno. I started doing it when I was like fourteen cause I thought it would make me look sophisticated," she rolled her eyes, "and I guess it just turned into a habit. Stupid, huh?"

"Not at all," he replied. And suddenly, in the wake of her unashamed retelling of a personal, pointless idiosyncracy, he remembered why he had loved her. "Do you think we'll ever figure it out? How to make it last, I mean. How to make us last?" She shook her head.

"I doubt it. I don't think we were meant to know. Your film is probably the closest we'll ever get to Forever Young." She set down her cup and smiled at him. "Which is fine with me."

"Me too," he said after a moment, meaning it. _I guess that means I finally did something right. _


End file.
